Amr Warda - A Story Too Crazy For A Telenovela

If you watch Amr Warda play a game of football, you can see a person with a lot of pace, skill and flair, who could take the sword to any defence. His movement off the ball, his finishing, passing, speed, strength… he has a lot of positive traits which should make him an exemplary footballer. 

Except. He's not. He's not an example to follow at all. 

Let's first look at his footballing history, where transfermarkt takes pride of place. Warda was born in Alexandria, Egypt in September 1993. He started his career in the youth teams of Alexandria Sporting Club and spent two years there between 2009 to 2011. Following this, Egyptian giants El Ahly took an interest, and he joined the U19s and then in 2013 was promoted to the U21s. In January 2015 he was sent on loan to Ittihad Alexandria and following the loan, he was released by El Ahly.

In the summer of 2015, he joined Panetolikos in Greece where he stayed for 18 months, and in January 2017 he moved to PAOK for a reported 350k euros. His time at PAOK was limited and the club sent him on loan to Atromitos in August 2017 for the 2017/18 season. He was sent on loan to Atromitos again in the second half of the 2018/19 season. He was again sent out on loan for the full 2019/20 season to AEL Larisa this time. At the end of that season he was released and signed by Volos, who managed to keep hold of him until January 2021, where PAOK signed him again.

In the summer of 2021 he was again released by PAOK and this is where the Cyprus part of the story starts. Anorthosis originally signed the player on a 1 year contract. After being voted the MVP for the 2021/2022 season, Anorthosis extended his contract for another season. However, following some issues (more on them later), he moved to Apollon Limassol in January 2023. And he was then released in the summer of 2023. In the summer of 2023, it was assumed he had signed for 3 clubs. He lasted 2 weeks at Raja Casablanca, signed a pre-agreement with Doxa Katokopias and was going to end up in Iran, but now maybe in Egypt (as of writing this, there is no official confirmation from anyone).

Let's look at his stats for each club.

For El Ahly, he actually played twice, coming off the bench in a league and a cup match. For Ittihad Alexandria he played in 16 games and scored a goal. 

In the 18 months he spent at Panetolikos he played 45 games scoring 10 and assisting 6. 7 of those goals/assists came in the last 2 months of his stint at the club, which earned him the move to PAOK. 

For PAOK, despite the stop/start nature of his stay there, he managed 63 appearances with 6 assists and 6 goals, and this includes 13 games in European competitions. At Atromitos, he appeared 42 times, scored 13 and assisted in 9 goals. At AEL Larisa he scored 7 and assisted 6 in 23 games. 

In the 54 games he played for Anorthosis he scored 12 and assisted 12 goals. In his MVP season, as voted for by his peers, he scored 9 and set up 8 of those goals in the league. In his second season up to January he had 1 goal and 3 assists. At Apollon in 19 games he had 4 goals and 4 assists.

The good

One thing that you can probably see in the stats as well is that Warda has… a character while he is on the pitch. In the 274 professional games he has been involved with, as well as all the goals and assists he has, there is also the question of 57 yellow cards. That’s a yellow card every 5 games. In fact in Cyprus, in the 73 games he has played he has had 19 yellows, which is one every 4 games.

In fact, if he were to continue his career in Cyprus, he would be suspended for the next 2 games he would be available for, due to “obscene gestures towards the opposing fans” when Apollon played APOEL in the second to last game of 2022/23 season. He had a fantastic game against the team from Nicosia scoring a goal and assisting, leading to a 3-2 defeat of APOEL which gave Aris Limassol the title. 

Even more, he seems to have a history with APOEL fans, as when he was playing for Anorthosis the season before, during and after the game, he goaded the opposition fans, and when Anorthosis had beaten APOEL, he screamed “Gamo to APOEL” or “I fuck APOEL”.  

There were rumours of talks held between APOEL's president Petrides and Warda's camp of him signing in the summer of 2022. Word of this got out to the organised fans and ultras of APOEL, who threatened the APOEL president with riots should the player join the club. 

When he left Anorthosis, he left under a cloud, dragging a club that was a mess and in disarray through even more mud. In December, following strong protests from the fans at how the club was being run, including a cancellation to a game because of molotov cocktails thrown on the pitch, Warda was begging to be released from his contract. The club obliged, as long as someone would provide compensation. Warda then posted on social media about the disrespect the club showed to him, to which they copied and pasted a text message he had sent to the president of the club, verbatim, where he was asking the president to respect his wishes, and that Warda thought of him as a father.

It didn’t go down too well with the fans.

Even though he signed to Apollon as a free agent in the January after, according to transfermarkt, Apollon had to pay someone a 120,000 euro fee.

The bad

Warda has a history of off the field football issues that do not involve APOEL or Anorthosis. 

While at PAOK, as mentioned above, the club sent him out on loan as, it was being reported at the time, Warda had discipline issues and would not be partaking in preseason training with PAOK. They first sent him to Feirense in Portugal on the 9th August 2017 for a fee of 1.25 million euros. The loan lasted all of 3 days. The media reported that the contract was cancelled after Warda had harassed the wives of two of his teammates, including the club captain.

In the summer of 2019, Warda was kicked out of the Egyptian National Team, for amongst other sexual harassment allegations, he sent dick pics to a model on Instagram, and other women came forward saying that they received messages of a lewd nature from the player. 

The match following his banning, Ahmed Elmohamady scored, and in his celebration put two fingers from each hand up…

Obviously, he’s ordering Chinese take away

… to protest the fact his team-mate had been banned. 

Mo Salah also got involved, stating that everyone deserves a second chance, especially after Warda had posted a video of himself apologising to everyone. He was then reinstated to the team.

Sexual harassment and promiscuity allegations have followed him everywhere he has been. There were reports and eyewitness testimony of him locking himself in a toilet cubicle in a club in Limassol with a lady and them causing a queue for the use of the toilet. There are also allegations and rumours flying about of him being involved with underage women. 

Image not related. At all. Not one bit.

The ugly

But what of this summer's transfer debacle? 

Well, following Warda's release from Apollon at the end of the 2022/23 season, there was a long period of uncertainty surrounding him. He was touting himself to the teams in the European competitions (except for APOEL, obviously), but interest in him was low, as there seemed to be issues with his work and travel papers, as well as the suspension he would have to serve for the first 2 games of the First Division season. Not only this, but he was also pricing himself out of moves with his high wage demands.

For the first 10 days in August however, we heard continuously that Warda would be signing for Raja Casablanca. But why the delay?

This is where some inside information comes in…

I have been provided information that Warda was having trouble getting travel arranged which he could afford. He wanted a private jet, but the pricing he was getting was a bit too expensive for his liking. So he tried again and again with the booking agent to get something cheaper.

In the end, he had to take "pleb flights".

You see, dear reader, Mr Warda likes to travel in style. For instance, one would remember his post on Instagram about travelling to Dubai in the private jet.

That dog is going to be important later… FORESHADOWING!

So the man of the moment makes it to Casablanca and films his announcement video, popping off all over the place. The video gets released on August 11th and social media had 2 reactions. For a similar example of reactions, see Getafe announcing Mason Greenwood on loan. 

Then nothing.

And in fact he was reported missing for two days before he appeared in hospital connected up to a drip, and a comment of "not feeling good". 

Videos popped up on the Internet of (allegedly) him cuddling up to a mystery woman in a bar in Casablanca. 

And then on the 23rd August, the Moroccan club announced he would be released from his contract due to " personal issues".

Now, back to my source. They confirmed that Warda was trying to get a flight for the dog from Larnaca to Casablanca, from August 15th. Warda could only afford a small aircraft, which would require the plane to stop at 2 places, in Italy and France, for refuelling purposes. The flight offer fell apart. Due to the costs, Warda had pleaded with the agent to help since his dog is sick, he has cancer. My source is not sure, but they believe the personal issues cited in Warda cancelling his contract with Raja is because he could not get his dog to Morocco due to how expensive it would have been. 

Warda was actually looking to leave Casablanca from the 17th August. And he found his way out with the discussion he had with Doxa president Costas "Karavidas" Christodoulou in and around the 24th August. Karavidas posted a mobile phone screenshot of Warda in the dark with the word "καλωσόρισες" (welcome) underneath. The media in Cyprus went wild. 

Then there were the reports that Warda missed the plane Karavidas had booked which were denied by Karavidas. And sure enough, Warda arrived on Cypriot soil to finalise the agreement.

Except, those travel and work issues from before? The Cypriot border control authorities didn't like that too much, and Warda was kept for a few hours in immigration, before promptly being thrown on to the next flight from Cyprus to Egypt.

Warda doesn't want to be in Egypt right now. He has passport problems and a renewal of his passport would require him to undertake military service. So, somehow, he engineered a move to Esteghlal in Iran. 

A big problem with that though… he signed a pre-agreement with Karavidas, who would also be looking for a return of investment for the flight from Morocco to Cyprus. This hurdle seemed to have been cleared with Esteghlal footing the bill of 150,000 euros to keep Karavidas from reporting Warda to FIFA.

But then Esteghlal… binned the deal. 

Zamalek in Egypt jumped in, but that seems to have gone nowhere. 

And now another suitor has stepped in! Alexandria Sporting Club is the latest rumour. Back to the start for Wardavision. I'll leave you with a quote:

“Be nice and gentleman with me, se parakalo my friend. I’m asking, se parakalo, respect me.”